The New Toronto: More Potholes, Dirtier Streets And Longer Snow Removal Waits/List Of

[The Mississauga Muse]

Thank you Mike Harris.

Mike Harris? I agree, but I'm interested in why you say that.

 

[simply Dan]

I'd slash the fire department and shelter budgets in half, but they didn't ask me for suggestions...

Good thing - instead of more litter and taller grass we would have burning buildings and even more homeless people on the streets if it were up to you.

At the end of the day, Toronto will still be far cleaner than almost every other major city in the world after these cuts. There is a lot in this town that we take for granted.

 

[ShonTron]

Mike Harris? I agree, but I'm interested in why you say that.

It's how smart neo-conservatives operate (not Harris, but the backroom operatives like Tony Clement, Leslie Noble). They slash taxes, slash spending, look like heroes and bind any future governments when the chickens come home to roost - the artificially low taxes are hard to reverse politically. This is part of the reason why McGuinty hasn't fixed nearly enough of Harris' damage.

The Reagan administration, Thatcher, Paul Martin - they all operated the same way.

Edit: I admit that perhaps Martin shouldn't be in the same league as the real neo-cons, but his solutions - slashing transfer payments while still cutting taxes screwed us, especially, as a "have" province, I think Ontario got hit harder. Also, even during his brief tenure as Prime Minister, did he actually do anything for cities? Or was he all talk?

 

[scarberiankhatru]

We spend enough on shelters to rent apartments for a hell of a lot of people. There's hundreds of millions of dollars in other social services that could be cut and the only people affected would be CityTV reporters because they'd have to invent so many sob stories.

 

[unimaginative2]

The province keeps its taxes in check, continues to avoid uploading, and tells the city to use the powers that it demanded. The province is happy, taxpayers outside of Toronto are happy, and Toronto is screwed.

How are taxpayers outside Toronto happy? They pay the exact same provincially mandated expenses as Toronto. Until recently, the 905 muncipalities even paid additional costs related to regional pooling (which I think was legitimate).

It makes me sick when people go around screaming about the evil McGuinty. First of all, he gave Toronto exactly what it asked for (unique enhanced taxation powers and other forms of independence). He inherited a multibillion dollar deficit as soon as he was elected, despite the repeated assurances by the tories in the middle of the campaign that the budget was absolutely balanced. When he tried to still implement some of his commitments in health care despite the budget crisis by raising taxes, the uproar was beyond unbelievable, lasted weeks, and caused a plummetting in the polls from which he has never recovered. He was attacked and called a liar endlessly (of course nobody mentioned the Tories' obvious lie about the balanced budget), and this was despite the fact that the money was going to the sector people identified as their number one priority. A sector where people claimed in polls that they'd be willing to accept targeted tax hikes in order to fund improvements.

 

[nicetommy]

If you recall back to the last provincial campaign, McGuinty was fully aware of the deficit situation in Ontario, and did not believe for a second that the budget was balanced. In fact on numerous occassions he claimed publicly that the Tories were lying and that in the Liberal's estimation there was probably at least a $4 billion dollar deficit - it turned out to be more, but nonetheless, he was completely aware of what he was getting into when he was making all of his 101 B.S. promises. He lied, he got in and now he is trying to find a way of getting back on top of the game by playing the Environmental Crusader and many other roles [the roles change depending on what target market he is working over at any given time]

Every government loves to blame the previous ones for the mess they find themselves in. Heck, the Tories inherited an $11 Billion dollar deficit from Rae and the NDP... I guess that should now make a lot of people less agitated about all the cut throat programs that they introduced while in office.

 

[RJR123]

It's how smart neo-conservatives operate (not Harris, but the backroom operatives like Tony Clement, Leslie Noble). They slash taxes, slash spending, look like heroes and bind any future governments when the chickens come home to roost - the artificially low taxes are hard to reverse politically. This is part of the reason why McGuinty hasn't fixed nearly enough of Harris' damage.

The Reagan administration, Thatcher, Paul Martin - they all operated the same way.

I would never lump Paul Martin in with Reagan and Thatcher and the rest of the neo-cons. It took major political courage to tackle the deficit that he inherited from the Mulroney government in 1993, in that the spending cuts could have been political suicide. The Liberals didn't slash taxes, they slashed program spending to put Canada back onto sound financial footing; this is very different from neo-cons, who are in general fiscally reckless (see George W. Bush).
Also, Martin came to be a passionate believer in the goal of cities as economic engines.

 

[Pep'rJack]

^ Careful not to mix up neoliberalism & neoconservatism - though they overlap, they're not the same thing. These terms have become very slippery, and lead to much confusion for obvious reasons:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberal

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoconservative

Martin was not a neocon, but he most certainly was a neolib, and was held up several times as the beacon example of such during the 90s by the rest of the G8 and others.

 

[RJR123]

Agreed, and this was my point, namely that one should never lump Martin in with the likes of Reagan, Thatcher, William Kristoll, Bush, etc. as a neo-con.

 

[unimaginative2]

If you recall back to the last provincial campaign, McGuinty was fully aware of the deficit situation in Ontario, and did not believe for a second that the budget was balanced. In fact on numerous occassions he claimed publicly that the Tories were lying and that in the Liberal's estimation there was probably at least a $4 billion dollar deficit - it turned out to be more, but nonetheless, he was completely aware of what he was getting into when he was making all of his 101 B.S. promises. He lied, he got in and now he is trying to find a way of getting back on top of the game by playing the Environmental Crusader and many other roles [the roles change depending on what target market he is working over at any given time]

Every government loves to blame the previous ones for the mess they find themselves in. Heck, the Tories inherited an $11 Billion dollar deficit from Rae and the NDP... I guess that should now make a lot of people less agitated about all the cut throat programs that they introduced while in office.

Come on. First of all, as you say they had no idea the deficit was as big as it was. In fact, the health premium only covers a fraction of the deficit that the Tories left us. I would have had nothing against Mike Harris cutting programs to deal with the massive NDP deficit. Obviously he had no choice. My problem is with slashing income tax by 30% when you're facing an $11 billion deficit, which is wildly irresponsible.

Martin, on the other hand, didn't cut taxes before the budget was balanced. He also balanced the budget while maintaining the framework of Canada's valued social programs, like medicare.

 

[ShonTron]

Martin, on the other hand, didn't cut taxes before the budget was balanced. He also balanced the budget while maintaining the framework of Canada's valued social programs, like medicare.

He slashed transfers to the provinces, the easiest way out, and he did cut corporate taxes early on. The provinces in turn. It was probably wrong to lump him in the same category as Harris, Thatcher or Reagan, but he took a few pages from the same book, and certainly helped to contribute to the problems we have now.

I also remember him underestimating surpluses/overestimating deficits, which kept money from being spent or even debated on where it would go. But in retospect, at least it didn't go to tax cuts, but instead disappeared in the name of debt reduction, then he had the strange goals of debt-to-GDP ratios, which kept big surpluses going to where they might be needed.

 

[unimaginative2]

You don't think the $42+ billion deficit didn't contribute to these problems? I mean, honestly, this revisionist history really drives me crazy. What did you expect him to do? Wave a magic wand to make it disappear? The money had to come from somewhere. He didn't make rash tax cuts before the budget was balanced. He even introduced a major new social program - the child tax benefit. Martin certainly did cut -- the money to literally save us from national bankrupty had to come from somewhere. Martin/Chretien maintained our social programs, eventually reduced taxes and increased social spending, all while eliminating the structural deficit. Harris savaged the social safety net because he slashed taxes all the while trying to reduce the deficit. He left us with a structural deficit intact, and a crumbling social and physical infrastructure. I'd certainly take Martin/Chretien any day of the week.

 

[ganjavih]

The Chretien/Martin years may have been painful but certainly necessary to keep the country from becoming an economic basketcase... which was what it was becoming. To lump them together with real neo-cons, who recklessly cut taxes and spending for ideological reasons, is just silly.

 

[ShonTron]

You don't think the $42+ billion deficit didn't contribute to these problems? I mean, honestly, this revisionist history really drives me crazy.

I'll correct myself. It was silly to say Reagan, Thatcher, Harris and then Martin in the same sentence. Though I think Martin made things more painful than they had to be, and I think there was a lot of ideology behind it, and I think neo-liberal is an apt label. I point to the hugely underestimated budgets that stifled the debate on where funding should go. Health care and other programs were hit hard. The provincial governments are rightly criticised for downloading, but sometimes forget that the federal government did the exact same thing.

The deficit was corrected fairly quickly, but it took the provinces much longer to achieve the same thing, especially since transfer payments were cut so deeply, and federal programs cut as well. The provinces passed the lost buck down to the cities. Once the deficit was eliminated, the goal was not restoring the funds, but it was debt repayment and tax cuts. But yes, transfers were slowly increased again, and the child tax credit added.

We ended up with a huge infrastructure deficit, and a much smaller federal government, and cities that were hit by double-whammies.

That said, Mulroney's terrible administration laid the foundation.

 

[unimaginative2]

I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree. I don't know if very many neo-liberals would like to have Martin included in their group, considering his support for major social programs like Medicare, though Martin himself might not mind the title. What some people call underestimating surpluses others can call being prudent. That has got to be one of the strangest most unique attacks levelled at the Liberals during the long time in power: they're horrible financial managers because they made more money than they expected. The fact is, it's extremely difficult to forecast what revenues will be a year in advance. All of those years with the unprecedented surpluses were also marked with unexpectedly high economic growth. If there had been an economic downturn, that entire massive surplus could have been wiped out. Moreover, the Liberals did spend a little bit of the unexpected surpluses on things like infrastructure programs. They were criticized for that, too -- "Shoveling money out the door at the end of the year."

I agree that we have a huge deficit in things like infrastructure. 10 years of extremely responsible economic management has made it possible for us to seriously talk about fixing it.